Nature Mentoring is a really amazing way to enable young people to really deepen their connection to nature in a profound life enhancing way. It’s a relationship that is built between young people and their experienced and passionate adult mentors who over time will skillfully work to bring out the unique passions and abilities of each young person. In nature mentoring young people explore their relationship with nature, deepen their connection to themselves and each other and they learn outside in creative, inspiring and fun ways. Mentors take the role of the coyote sometimes, sometimes they are the teacher but often they are just there to draw out the inherent wisdom that is there to be gained through direct experience in nature.

So why is this important?

In modern times two major changes with regards to nature mentoring have occured.

The role of the community and extended family has diminished massively. Some young people are lucky to have an uncle or family friend who takes a deep interest in their upbringing but on the whole the main or sole responsibility these days is laid at the feet of the overstretched nuclear (or not so nuclear) family and the under resourced target driven schools. We just don’t tend to have mentors.

The second change is how much time we spend outdoors. One report said that children spend less than half as much time outdoors as their parents did. Green spaces are just not as accessible, safety is more of a concern and being indoors with computers and TV is much more appealing to our youngsters. Our children just aren’t going outside (an average of less than 4 hours per week in fact).

‘At Live Wild we strongly believe all children need connection, they need mentors and they need nature’.

Research shows that time with groups in nature impacts brain development, language, social skills, creativity, coordination, happiness, physical and mental health and wellbeing…..the list goes on. And research on positive adult mentors in out of school settings, both formal and informal are shown to support young people with confidence, self esteem, engagement in school and the ability to form positive relationships in future life and more.

The Eight Shields Institute (http://8shields.org/about/) in America has developed a model to work with young people based on experience and knowledge shared from indigenous cultures from around the world. This model has been bringing about great results.

We at Live Wild have been tracking this work for some time and in recent years have trained and worked with this model and ‘The Art of Mentoring’ (https://artofmentoring.life/aom/) in a number of projects. We know that there is now a growing body of knowledge and awareness of the benefits of long term deep nature connection mentoring and we want you to be a part of it.

With this in mind we are excited to launch the:

Monthly Nature Mentoring Programme 2018

Starting 14th January 2018 and then every second Sunday of each month.

For 5-8 year olds and 8-12 year olds

With only a few of its kind in this country and none in the north of england we are excited to offer monthly sessions in the beautiful woods near Hebden Bridge where we can really create a thriving healthy culture of nature connection with the young people we work with.

For information about when and where this is happening and details about how to sign up please email and we can send more information to you with full details. Please also feel free to pass this to anyone else you think might be interested.

Call 07979 207206 to speak to Leona one of our Nature Mentors.
And if you any questions at all please contact us.

Wildlings Holiday Club. We successfully ran our amazing Wildings Holiday Club throughout every school holiday!

‘This was the best day ever!’ Noah aged 8.

Adult Courses Our adult courses included Bushcraft, Foraging, Whittling and Nature Connection. So much fun was had eating foraged delights, cooking on the fire, connecting deeply with nature and learning in beautifully connective groups. Watch this space for more in 2018.

‘Wonderfully empowering, encouraging, inspiring-want to do more of it!!! Just right – you packed an amazing amount in without ‘stress” Birgitta

Funded places Thanks to the Todmorden Windfarm Fund and CCFC we were also really pleased to work with 6 different Todmorden Schools and be able to offer 60 FREE places to children who would not have normally accessed Wildlings. Amazing!

‘I don’t know what you did yesterday but I haven’t seen my daughter this happy and this excited about anything for a long time, she is so keen to come today….thank you” Parent

Forest School.Thanks to Pennine Prospects were also funded to run two 6 week forest school programmes accross Calderdale teaching children about our local woodland heritage. What a treat! Working with the lovely Field Lane Primary in Elland and St Josephs Primary in Todmorden we were able to inspire 60 children within their local woodlands and have fun getting into character as our cave women alter egos!

‘This has totally transformed the way my children play. Suddenly they want to play outside all time really creatively and imaginatively. Thank you!’ Parent of St Joseph’s School child.

Monthly Nature Mentoring. And what a wonderful winter wonderland we had to play in on our Monthly Nature Mentoring Taster Day.

‘Nature Mentoring is a really amazing way to enable young people to really deepen their connection to nature in a profound life enhancing way’.

We know lots of people are interested in our forthcoming programme which starts on Sunday 14th January, but remember your child’s place is only secure once the payment has been made and booking form is received.

Click here (info@livewild.org.uk) to let us know you are interested and we will send you all the information you need.
Places are limited and booking is essential so we wouldn’t want people to miss out.

Live Wild passionately believe that we all need connection to each other to ourselves and to nature. For more information do not hesitate to contact us.

Wow! What a fantastic day in great company with many creative and inspiring women. We began the day check in with ourselves taking some time to connect with our bodies and internal experience. A few of the days treats involved harvesting birch sap, whittled our own roasting skewers, learnt fire starting techniques and made a delicious lunch of foraged delicacies to cook over the flames. Thank you to every one who made it such an enjoyable time together.

This week at the Wildlings Holiday Club was amazing despite of and because of the weather! Adventures. Rock scrambling, tree climbing, mud slides, fires, fun and friends……… book now for the Easter Holiday while theres an early bird discount and before it gets booked up again.

A fantastic day of nature connection games and bushcraft skills including fire making and foraging. Fun for the whole family, friends and loved ones in a beautiful woodland setting. Go Wild with your kids! Our specially trained and experienced forest school leaders are excited to inspire and delight adults and children with Bushcraft, Fire Making, Hunting Games, Den Building and lots of adventure and fun all in a beautiful outdoor setting in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. An opportunity for adventure in a supported context and lots of other interesting ways of building confidence, nature connection and a love for the outdoors. Suitable for children 5 and older.

We have created an opportunity for a whole weekend of deep connection, relaxation and nature immersion along with an opportunity to give something back to the earth by spending part of the time planting trees restoring the natural habitat of the area and helping to build flood resilience. Learn about foraging, whittling, have guided solo time in nature and have an opportunity to repay nature for the gifts we receive by planting trees. What a treat!

Lovely home cooked vegan food, accommodation and facilitation from our amazing Live Wild Nature Guides and Treesponsibility all for the amazing price of £120, including everything! For more details click here.

How can we inspire a culture of Nature Connection? that was the question posed at a gathering I attended in a swanky gallery in London last week. Not the usual setting for nature connection activities and not the usual people actually. There was a wonderfully diverse array of participants, ranging from bankers and business men to teachers, youth workers, festival organisers and yogis. It’s not uncommon for me to be surrounded by people passionate about nature connection, but they are usually always directly involved in the business in some way. This was different. The organisers at Way of Naturehad reached outside the bubble and created some interesting possibilities.

Way of Nature is an exciting organisation that was established around 4 years ago. They have been successfully running a range of retreats and programmes to inspire connection and purpose as a response to the challenges of modern day life. No wonder they have been popular. Working with businesses to inspire transformation and unity, working with groups of men to create evolution of purpose and awareness, family camps, day courses; you name it they have been doing it and now they are hoping to expand the possibilities.

My first encounter with their work came a few months ago when a friend posted a link to an ‘Open evolution; joining in the future of way of nature’. I love big ideas. I also love what I do and I have a deep passion for sharing it and working towards a nature connected future. .Since I started my journey learning about the fields of ecopsychology, traditional cultures and other contemporary approaches, my fears and knowledge about the dire straights of our current industrial growth society have had to give way to my hopes for a life sustaining culture. There is so much potential for change and I truly feel that now is the time. I sense that Way of Nature, inspired and connected individuals that they are, are aware of the huge need for societal change but also have the skills to really think differently about how we reach the masses. It’s ambitious and bold and yet it seems that when a diverse range of people with an equally diverse set of skills come together, some magic can really happen.

I was only part of a portion of what was discussed, I heard talk of lobby groups, corporate interventions, tackling accessibility, education and media presence, the need for grass roots action, working with healthcare systems, it was vast and yet the power of the possible was present in the room. The post evaluation results and responses from the discussions and workshops that took place have not been released yet. The brave format of the open source structure of this call out are risky, the potential for rapid loss of momentum with nobody to call to account and motivate the members. However, if it works, if people rise to the challenge, use their power of personal entrepreneurship, agency, self motivation and collaboration then we are on to a winner. Using the metaphor of mycelium webs – self organising of connections beneath the forest – we are being invited to get connected, build strength in numbers, in knowledge and emerge together to become much greater than the sum of our parts.

If any of this excites you then do make contact. In the spirit of abundance, I am hoping to start a directory of research bodies and organisations that deliver nature connection opportunities and I would love you to make this possible by forwarding contact details, emails, or websites that you are aware of in that fit this category. Way of Nature will also be happy to hear from anyone who feels inspired and available to get involved. Watch this space.

Highly recommend this club. Our kid’s been twice and LOVES it! This morning he was super exited about it. Thank you to all you hardworking people who run this. It’s no mean feat engaging children for so long!

– Hena Chowdbury

Just wanted to let you know that the boys had brilliant day in the woods on Wednesday. Despite looking utterly miserable when I dropped them off they were returned to me muddy, full of stories and very happy. Since then, they’ve regaled everyone with tales of making jaffa cakes with jelly ear mushrooms, making ink and quills, playing games and hanging out in the hammock. Brilliant stuff, thank you so much’ – Parent

Thanks to everyone who came and supported our Sustainable Celebration. We had a really lovely festive morning, with music, fire, mulled apple juice, wood craft and lots of wonderful people! Special thanks to volunteers who gave their time to make it possible.